CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 17: Paul Manafort, Campaign Manager for Donald Trump, speaks on the phone while touring the floor of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena as final preparations continue July 17, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Republican National Convention begins July 18. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Paul Manafort’s former son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, entered a plea agreement this week with the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which has been probing Yohai’s real estate contracts for more than one year.
Yohai is required to cooperate with federal investigators as part of the plea deal. Manafort, President Donald Trump‘s former campaign chairman, has been indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller‘s probe into alleged Russian collusion during the 2016 election.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to several charges that include tax evasion and bank fraud. He served as Trump’s campaign chairman for three months before stepping down in August 2016.
According to CNN, Yohai is being investigated for a Ponzi scheme that counts Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman among the people he duped.
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Manafort and Yohai were previously business partners. Yohai pleaded guilty earlier this year to misusing construction loan funds and to a count pertaining to a bank account overdraft.
The Justice Department has reportedly been asking for Yohai’s cooperation in other probes, including an inquiry into Manafort’s alleged money laundering and tax violations in his financial transactions with pro-Russian political entities in Ukraine.
It remains unknown whether or not any of the information Yohai has given Mueller and other federal investigators has been useful in any cases, including the case involving Manafort.
According to NBC News, online real estate postings reveal MC Brooklyn Holdings — Manafort’s holding firm — purchased a brownstone in Brooklyn, New York in December 2012 for nearly $3 million that Yohai brokered.
A sentencing date for Yohai has not yet been set.
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